Steady-state eternal inflation
- 29 March 2002
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review D
- Vol. 65 (8) , 083507
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.65.083507
Abstract
Since the advent of inflation, several theorems have been proven suggesting that although inflation can (and generically does) continue eternally into the future, it cannot be extended eternally into the past to create a “steady-state” model with no initial time. Here we provide a construction that circumvents these theorems and allows a self-consistent, geodesically complete, and physically sensible steady-state eternally inflating universe, based on the flat slicing of de Sitter space. This construction could be used as the background spacetime for creation events that form big-bang-like regions, and hence could form the basis for a cosmology that is compatible with observations and yet which avoids an initial singularity or beginning of time.Keywords
All Related Versions
This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- Inflation and eternal inflationPhysics Reports, 2000
- SINGULARITIES IN INFLATIONARY COSMOLOGY: A REVIEWInternational Journal of Modern Physics D, 1996
- Eternally existing self-reproducing chaotic inflanationary universePhysics Letters B, 1986
- Nonconservation of baryons in cosmology—revisitedJournal of Astrophysics and Astronomy, 1984
- Birth of inflationary universesPhysical Review D, 1983
- Inflationary universe: A possible solution to the horizon and flatness problemsPhysical Review D, 1981
- The arrow of timeThe Astrophysical Journal, 1976
- A radical departure from the ‘steady-state’ concept in cosmologyProceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 1966
- Relativistic Space FormsAnnals of Mathematics, 1962
- Interaction with the Absorber as the Mechanism of RadiationReviews of Modern Physics, 1945